FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD52 → Mustered

Mustered

By arron-fowler

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1913.8241
Fun1923.7341
Innovation1783.6641
Theme2253.9841
Graphics3273.8041
Audio2223.5740
Humor6102.2931
Mood3323.5639

Comments

sharks 2023-01-10 02:24

I'm always excited to see what you come up with and you did not disappoint! I agree that this game has a huge scope but for what it is worth I think you pulled it off, aside from balancing of course.

Few pain points for me: - The camera is really awkward and I never managed to get the hang of it, it was also annoying having it jump around everytime I click to place something. Am I doing something wrong? I would have loved to just have click and drag or WASD controls.

- I wish there was somewhere that told me what tile type objects required. This wasn't very apparent and left me confused for a while.

- It seems to me that you can get all the same cards no matter if you do premium/standard etc. so because I always had more coins I never ended up using any of the other card types, which I don't think was intentional.

Another thing I noticed is it seems you don't check funds for skipping cards. Was this intentional to prevent people from getting soft locked? I managed to go into the negatives on my coins just by skipping enough cards. Gripes aside, I really liked the music. It was repetitive but didn't overstay its welcome or get annoying whilist I was playing. Your game has a lot of depth and complexity and I respect the hell out of that. Graphically the game also looks great! Love the shadows, love the voxel art, it looked like a finalised, polished game to me (aside from the UI) but I shouldn't expect less from you, I guess :) Overall I really enjoyed it and it sounds like you enjoyed this LD which is awesome! I hadn't really been enjoying some of the previous LD's but this one was a blast for.. some reason. I mean, I'm not complaining. But I am glad to hear you enjoyed making it. Hope to see you again in April!

ironhandmd 2023-01-10 08:02

interesting game! I like the art and the mechanics of drawing cards to develop land and other resources, a creative take on world building mixed with cards, it is really challenging and fun , keep it up!

arron-fowler 2023-01-10 08:05

Thanks @sharks. Yeah card info was broken as well as other stuff. I've been doing 7 day jams more recently. I knew 72 was going to be a shock! I am pleased you are my first play

thereddevil 2023-01-10 13:36

Definitely a very nice concept, although I didn't really know what I was doing most of the time. Also love the art!

cievers 2023-01-10 13:51

I think there are a bit too many water edge tiles, and a few too little full water tiles, and that the balancing/rarity of tiles needed more work in general. I for example didn't get any people the first time I tried.

However, the fact that you've been able to make something this nice and relaxing is amazing, well done!

dkdwrek 2023-01-10 14:44

Wow this was very cool. I was able to make a thriving population! I think the balance was pretty good overall. I wish you could move the camera around, since the land was getting quite large and I could only place new tiles on the left side after placing something somewhere else to move the camera back that way temporarily. I like the music as well, very relaxing.

sharks 2023-01-10 15:49

Oh I agree with Clevers, I forgot to mention that, I don't know if it was just because I was using tjr standard card packs but I was getting primarily water tikes which didn't seem to have much utility.

arron-fowler 2023-01-10 16:02

@sharks before the great overscope cull took place water had a greater roll. You can place ducks on grass water blocks but thats about it

marryvss 2023-01-10 18:56

I am amazed you manage to did it alone! Really like the graphics

jamesboink 2023-01-10 18:56

Very nice game! It's slightly similar to ours actually :D Great graphics, reeeealy pleasant to play, very fun - i like ir!

fishmasterino 2023-01-10 22:44

This is really nice and relaxing, but feels it is missing a goal of some sort. I wish I could zoom out to see the world I built

geraldfingburke 2023-01-11 03:51

Could be improved with a better camera, but altogether very well done. I enjoyed this. Left a comment with a photo on your Itch page as well, as that's what led me here.

digitaldude555 2023-01-11 20:44

Very nice, good sandbox game, great effort from a solo dev but yeah I can see how the mechanics are too much for three days. My only suggestion is; make the animals a bit bigger.

shp 2023-01-12 20:09

this is really cool, it was just very easy to just keep clicking and expanding the world, some overarching goals would be nice but for a LD game this is really nice as just something to keep playing with

rolly 2023-01-12 22:19

I'm disappointed. I was told to expect bugs, so I did, but I didn't find any :(

More seriously, what an amazing game! It's crazy that you were able to create all this in 72 hours. And it works really well. Okay there is some more information that could be added to help the player, and it would need an actual ending, but it works really well, the visuals are good and the music is really nice! And there's so much content it actually takes a while to see everything.

I would recommend adding some shortcuts to purchase the cards, I wanted to go faster, but was limited by the movements of the cursor. :p

Good job, cool game!

arron-fowler 2023-01-12 22:42

@rolly sorry about the lack of bugs. Having done virtually zero play testing I assumed there would be more. Damn my ambition. Thanks for the shortcut suggestion I hadn't considered that. This is my nod to Idle click, I was told people love a bit of clicking. I have started work on post jam whilst watching some streams. So many improvements were really easy to do, it's annoying. I got my plans right just needed a few more days lol

chompdev 2023-01-13 00:38

This is a very cool little card game, and quite impressive for a jam! The music and sound effects are nice, and the voxel models look great. The animated humans and critters moving passively around the landscape is great. Cool idea to have the standard/better/premium decks that you can draw from as you find/mine rarer resources on the map. At some points, I sort of felt like I was playing an RTS and uncovering fog of war as the game progressed. Would love to see more of this one if you decide to expand it more and add new cards. Great work!

score30.PNG

arron-fowler 2023-01-13 07:27

Thanks @chompdev I've been doing a bit of post dev whilst watching streams and it's already come on a long way. So much that was on the list was actually super simple to add. Hard not to kick yourself for prioritising other things. That's jams for you. I will let you know when it's updated.

pikkufighter 2023-01-13 19:15

Loved it! There is a lot of ways you could further develop this.

patrickrmc 2023-01-13 22:56

Love the art, love the concept of the game. I could see myself revisiting this game after the jam, or even develop my own take on it. Solid work, good entry.

kevin-barrios 2023-01-13 23:36

Wow, this is an impressive amount to get done for a jam. Difficulty curve was non-existent but I think that was a framing issue more than anything. I was expecting it to be difficult to survive because of the tutorial, but instead it was fun to just zone out and watch my map grow. The music and overall vibe help with that too. Good job, I'm glad you've worked on it more.

tosmaster 2023-01-14 11:54

This is such a cool game! I had a lot of fun playing it! Reminds me a lot of "Dorfromantik" but with a cool twist and great art style! This could easily be extended into a standalone game! So much potential! Maybe implement full mouse control ('r' to rotate could be placed on the RMB?) and it might even work fully on mobile? Keep it up, it's really cool!

arron-fowler 2023-01-14 12:14

Thanks @tosmaster just watching yours on stream. Can't wait to play. Post jam is coming along nicely

his-the-unknown-painter 2023-01-15 11:57

asd.JPG

Look at my heart shape pond!

I like this game. That Background music is quite loud, but other sound effect is sooo satisfied!

Well done! Thanks for made this game so musch!

Cheers!

arron-fowler 2023-01-15 13:34

@his-the-unknown-painter I am planning an Easter egg for the post jam in your honor

pcmaster 2023-01-15 14:39

Ultra cute :) Very smooth controls. My map quickly grew to gigantic proportions. I didn't have a feeling I could lose, could I actually?

arron-fowler 2023-01-15 15:02

@pcmaster technically yes but it's unlikely once you get food in the system. I am finishing off the list in a post jam which has difficulty settings. The people will die but not likely in the submission

pcmaster 2023-01-15 18:01

@arron-fowler since you're still touching your pretty little game, do think about publishing it for real somewhere to see how it does in the wild. People will love your art style. Piggies, cows, ducks, come on, I'm already sold :) Cheers!

arron-fowler 2023-01-15 20:16

@pcmaster thanks for the encouragement. I think I shall

amarokczukay 2023-01-16 13:59

after watching your game being played by streamers, i finally test it myself! i looove the fact that you can build your own world, and finally, i spent most of my time just creating a little cosy island for my settlers. graphics are nice, it's a cool semi-idle game!

the only downside is that there is no incentive, it just keeps growing and growing, and i don't see how you can really lose the game.

but great entry tho!

matt-rix 2023-01-17 19:24

Super cool. There are definitely some quirks regarding UI and balancing, but it feels really neat to go from nothing to having this whole world come alive.

flying-dog-fish 2023-01-17 23:43

Great game! Very zen world building experience. Voxel graphics looks great, sounds effects are cool and the music fits well.

kikiriki367 2023-01-19 04:08

Everything works great and is fun to play, me and my population of 25 liked it. The basic gameplay reminds me a bit of the boardgame Isle of skye :)) Its a shame that there is no zoom out on the camera.. i really enjoy those in city building games. After finishing a big part of the game just zooming out and staring! But all in all its a great one!

remco 2023-01-21 16:52

It was somewhat zen, like you said. Played it for longer than I wanted, since it's quite easy to get sucked in.

Sound-effects and ambient music work very nice, in that they don't get in the way, but do really enhance the atmosphere.

Since my land got larger, the camera kept drifting south most of the time. To mostly focus on the lake I built on one side of the map. I had a hard time placing things where I wanted occasionally because of that. Fortunately when I placed something, the camera would drift there, giving me some time to place other things. (It wasn't _too_ bad though.)

I'm not sure there is much purpose to water. (Other than placing ducks on the coast.) Maybe if coins where a bit rarer, it could be a bit of an 'unwanted' block, but even then you can mostly just put them on one side of the map.

I could get by with basically only standard cards, since they seem to have everything except the stones, in such quantities that often you fill up the landscape with enough variation anyway. The stones only seem to exist to give you access to Premium cards, but then the premium cards seem to basically give you the same as the Better cards, except with a bit more livestock thrown in.

But I enjoyed it, and that's its own reward.

stormcat 2023-01-22 02:41

Cool game! I remember playing "A Night Around the Fire" by you a year or two ago, and it's really neat to see how you've been getting on with this!

The card/worldbuilding mechanic was a lot of fun, it reminded me somewhat of Carcassonne, which is a great board game. The sound effects and music added a lot to the game as well, it created a very fitting atmosphere for the gameplay.

At some points the cards did feel *too* random, as on my first run I never got a "move in" at all, but generally it feels pretty well designed. I also wasn't quite sure what to do with water, but it did add to the setting of the game.

Good job!

pusheeneiro 2023-01-23 09:50

Great ideal, I love video card games.

dfaouaz 2023-01-25 13:00

Loved the game! The artwork is amazing! Nicely done!

lsy 2023-01-25 16:24

I do enjoy this game. I believe that most people can learn the game without being introduced. Harvest seems to be instinctive when connected to a specific situation, and the development in it can bring real joy. I've experienced this in other sandbox games where you can hoard resources. So I think that it's another Zen aspect in this game (or several sandbox games of this kind).

Well, it's not just joy. When my land became larger, I started to be unwilling to close the web page. I know the world in the game can go on forever, but life can't. Life doesn't rise forever, it must rise and fall and need a good end. When I play sandbox games like Minecraft, I always felt this contradiction and thought a lot about this, but this is the first time I write it down. Overall, thank you for letting me play this for this long.

eloraju 2023-01-26 19:49

It was a good thing I waited to until I was done with work... I spent way too long playing this :sweat_smile: Really solid job here! I managed to get to a point where loosing seemed impossible quite quick though. Not sure if that's a bad thing or not.

sarah 2023-01-27 04:30

This was an interesting concept, but I did have a bit of a hard time reading the text when the game wasn't full screen cause it was a bit blurry. But overall, I like card games and it was fun! Well done!

jk5000 2023-01-27 14:29

The idea is really fun, and I had fun trying the game. I also really like the music. Yes, the game could use some rebalancing and perhaps a end goal. But it is fun to play the way it is right now. Good luck my internet friend, and hope to see you again in another LD.

arron-fowler 2023-01-27 23:37

@jk5000 thanks buddy. Here is to the results. May the ratings be kind.

arron-fowler 2023-01-29 00:09

79555n.gif

@shp @lsy @remco @sarah @rolly @jk5000 @sharks @dkdwrek @eloraju @dfaouaz @pcmaster @matt-rix @stormcat @marryvss @remco @cievers @chompdev @tosmaster @jamesboink @patrickrmc @ironhandmd @kikiriki367 @pusheeneiro @thereddevil @pikkufighter @amarokczukay @geraldfingburke @his-the-unknown-painter @flying-dog-fish @fishmasterino @kevin-barrios

Thanks so much for being along for the ride. I am really happy with my ratings. I hope you are to. Top half and I am happy.

I have made a Post Jam Work In Progress. If you want to check it out then I'd love feedback. My aim is Steam. Watch this space.

If any of you want feedback on Post Jam versions tag me and I am there.

I hope 2023 is the year that all our dreams come true. Peace out TheSoulSelector AKA Arron

https://thesoulselector.itch.io/mustered

sharks 2023-02-03 21:40

Awesome!